Seattle City Council Select Committee on Homelessness Strategies & Investments 2/26/20

meeting.

Oh, there we go.

Okay, here, I'll restart then real quick.

Yeah, I should have known.

So good afternoon, everybody.

It is 2.03 p.m.

on Wednesday, February 26. My name is Andrew Lewis.

I'm the chair of this committee, of the Committee on Homelessness Strategies and Investments, and this meeting will come to order.

First up is approval of the agenda.

If there's no objection, the agenda will be adopted.

hearing no objection, the agenda is adopted.

So just really briefly, a chair's report.

I just want to state for the members of the committee that we did receive, we are going to receive today a presentation from the Human Services Department on the navigation team.

Information has been circulated by the Human Services Department as well as by Seattle City Council Central staff in advance of this meeting.

I do just want to briefly touch on that there is going to be a presentation that's going to be provided by HSD.

They're going to use a PowerPoint presentation that was not provided to the committee by the council rules deadline of 24 hours in advance.

I did talk to the Human Services Department.

My initial inclination had been to have the committee and the department rely on the materials prepared by central staff.

The human services department shared the report in advance.

presentation materials in advance, and I was able to share them internally, they don't depart significantly from the materials we've already been provided.

So given that consideration, I am allowing them to use it in the presentation today.

But just know that I did advise the department and will advise the department again during the presentation today that it would be helpful for this committee to have presentation materials in advance in accordance with the council rules.

That's something that I'm going to insist on as chair of this committee going forward.

And I do appreciate the materials that were provided and I look forward to the presentation.

With that, and I do apologize for any inconvenience to the members of the committee for not having received that more recently than a couple hours ago.

With that, I'm going to open up this meeting to public comment.

I'm going to accept public comment for 20 minutes, which should be enough time for the number of folks that we have signed up today.

I am going to limit the speaking time to two minutes.

I'm going to allow people to speak as a group if they elect to.

to give a combined time of four minutes.

So with that, I'm going to start calling up the speakers.

Note that there are podiums back towards the window and also in the center of the room.

You can line up at either one.

I'm gonna call speakers three at a time, so please don't feel shy about approaching the podium when you're on deck so you can get started right when the previous speaker's time has expired.

So with that, I'm gonna call the first three speakers.

Apologize in advance for the mispronunciation of names.

The first speaker is Ilana Scott, and is your last name?

Eliana Scott-Fonis.

Sorry?

Eliana Scott-Fonis.

and and then Matthew Lang followed by just group Lehigh so already proactively signing up as a group.

My name is Eliana Skatonis.

I'm a longtime resident of the Seward Park Orthodox Jewish Community, and I'm speaking today as an organizer with the Housing for All Coalition.

I spend a lot of time organizing with and on behalf of my homeless friends and neighbors, delivering meals and supplies, helping with cleanups, helping people move before and during sweeps, and chairing the Othello Village Community Advisory Committee.

In all of that work, I've heard many stories and I've witnessed firsthand the devastating impact of the sweeps.

I've helped people as they've cried, I've helped haul precious possessions through the mud, and I've transported people to their new locations only to come back and help them move again as they have to go through the same brutal process.

I have seen sweeps derail people's job searches, destroy their hard-won security, disrupt support networks, interrupt medical treatments, lose documents, cherished mementos, and desperately needed work tools.

But all of those harms pale beside the trauma I have seen being inflicted.

I am very grateful for the increased scrutiny this Committee has been giving to the Navigation Team, which has enabled you to begin to see what people living outside and their concerned neighbors have been saying all along.

The navigation team is failing to navigate anyone to shelter and services and help and is instead effectively criminalizing poverty and causing trauma to people trying to survive in public spaces.

It is time and past time to stop funding this wasteful, harmful program and focus instead on building deeply affordable housing and connecting people to services and resources where they are while they're trying to survive outside.

I have yet to talk to anyone who wants to be living outside.

Everyone dreams of living in a safe, stable home and being able to rebuild their lives in whatever ways are necessary.

The sweeps are not helping that happen.

Now that you're beginning to see that, it would be inexcusable for you to allow this to continue, for to continue to spend our frighteningly scarce financial resources causing trauma and disruption in the lives of our most vulnerable neighbors.

Please step up and do the fiscally and morally responsible thing.

Thank you for your comments.

Thank you.

Matthew Lang.

Hi there, my name is Matthew Lang.

I'm the lead organizer at the Transit Riders Union, member of the planning committee of the Ballard Community Task Force on Homelessness and Hunger.

I was part of the community engagement work table for the ILA process and am formerly homeless myself as well.

I've done a lot of work on the ground in past years surrounding encampment removals.

Unfortunately, because of the accelerated no-notice sweep schedule, it's been very difficult to do outreach to the community and really help neighbors.

And when there has been notice for sweeps, it has been a very interesting process to watch over the past year.

I've been involved especially on some of the larger encampment removals, the Fremont Trolls sweep from last year, as well as the Jose Rizal encampment removal.

Something that I noticed and something that was very straightforward was that these numbers of available shelter that's what they're coming into a huge encampment with, right?

They might come into an encampment with 60 or 70 people living there and split it up into multiple zones in order to fill their quota.

So they're not technically breaking the MDARs, but they're operating around the MDARs.

And I think that's an incredibly problematic stance.

So I would propose that, Now that we have a new council, that we move forward in a way that we are looking at what our policies are surrounding encampment removals.

We haven't taken a look at that really since 2017. And I think it was a mistake for the MDAR Review Board to be dissolved at the end of 2018. I think we should review starting that up again, as well as begin the process of really looking into what's going on here.

in encampment removals.

And I'm more than happy to lend my experience to that.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next up will be Group Lehigh, followed by Anitra Freeman, followed by Gene Darcy.

Hi everyone.

I'm Josh Castle.

I work for Lehigh.

We are alarmed at the very high number of sweeps and very few successful shelter placements by the navigation team.

especially given that 96% of these were deemed exempt from the 72-hour notice.

It's shocking to us that only 24% of the contacts made were referred to shelter and only 6% actually showed up to shelter.

It has unfortunately become apparent that this work is a sweep operation, displacing people and deepening their homelessness and trauma instead of a shelter referral operation.

Lehigh works very closely with the navigation team who provide referrals to the villages that we operate.

And I like and appreciate the NAB team members who I work with.

This is not about them.

It is about the misguided direction they are receiving and the misuse of the funding that they receive.

And this direction appears to be shifting unhoused people from one miserable situation to another, which actually worsens this crisis instead of prioritizing getting people inside.

You know, my name's Teresa Home, and I'm also from Lehigh.

We're getting a lot of requests from people that I was just approached last time.

I was in a council meeting where a couple came up to me and said, we're in tent city, and we just want to move.

And I know this isn't about that.

I just want to let you know that there's a strong desire for people to move into our tiny houses.

And the sooner we can get them built, the better, right?

And we're having a problem also with appropriate referrals.

And so in communities where we have children, they're supposed to be clean and sober, and then we have referrals that are being made where the people are not Not drug-dependent, right?

So that's been a problem.

Now, we're interested in working together to solve this, but the numbers are worrisome.

So we just want to move on that as quickly as possible.

And whatever Lehigh can be doing to help with that.

But we appreciate that we're going to be building more tiny house villages.

The sooner we can get that done, the better.

And we thank you for your support in that.

All right, thank you so much.

Next up will be Anitra Freeman followed by Jean Darcy and Teresa Barker.

Good afternoon.

My name is Anitra Freeman.

I'm here today from the Wheel Women in Black.

We stand vigil whenever somebody homeless dies outside or by violence in King County.

We stood just today.

We have stood since 2000 for over 1,300 people.

And we have seen those deaths accelerate along with the sweeps.

We know sweeps kill.

They drive people into desperation.

They drive people from bad condition into worse conditions.

If there was enough shelter and housing for everyone, the sweeps would be unnecessary.

And since there is not enough housing and shelter for everyone, the sweeps are unconscionable.

You must do better.

There are alternatives.

You can be doing something besides chasing homeless people around.

Help them.

Thank you.

And I have our statement about sweeps here, a copy for everyone.

Thank you.

Jean Darcy.

Gene Darcy, I'm a volunteer with the Scottsdale mitigation team.

We do outreach to people living in vehicles.

They have essentially been swept for years with no safe place to park, no services coming to them at all.

I read a precie of the report on a local news blog, and I was appalled at the lack of results.

and the fact that the city cannot do any better than that to offer people help.

I want to say, and I'm going to be blunt here, if Mayor Giuliani thinks she is not under the Boise decision, I think she's wrong.

And I think somebody needs to take her to court over that.

Thank you.

Teresa Barker, followed by Tiffany McCoy, followed by Sue Hodes.

Hello.

My name is Teresa Barker.

I'm a little nervous, so I wrote out my statement.

My daughter is a field specialist for a construction engineering firm.

Last month, a team from her company went out to a job at a park on Queen Anne Hill.

which happened to have a homeless camp adjacent to the site.

When the team arrived at the site, which was a city park, it was loaded with trash.

What they saw and confronted them was garbage, needles, human feces, and other toxic waste.

This was horrifying.

I mean, for this team, it put them at risk, but it also puts at risk those who are in need, living outdoors, that are in these sites.

I represent between 150 to 200 neighbors in Ravenna and Cowan Parks, and in the last two years, we have been standing up for the special place that is Ravenna Park.

All city parks are special places for Seattle residents.

It's not okay to allow parks to become trash heaps.

It's not okay for our working professionals to be put at risk when they are just doing their jobs.

It's not okay for those in need living outdoors to be subjected to this toxic waste every day.

Everyone is at risk in this kind of toxic damage, and we just need to solve the problem of homelessness this year.

We live in a very special place with beautiful natural spaces.

We need the city's intervention teams, and we do support the NAV team to get those in need and living outdoors into housing and out of our city parks and green spaces.

Thank you.

Tiffany McCoy, followed by, I think it's Sue Hodes.

Good afternoon, council members.

Tiffany McCoy, I'm the lead organizer for Real Change.

When are we going to stop kidding ourselves that the navigation team is there primarily to bring people inside?

How many years are we going to keep asking for more and more data and have more and more folks with lived experience come and tell you that this isn't working?

How many more tens of millions of dollars are we going to keep pouring into a system that is not getting people inside?

The stellar reporting by Erica C. Barnett that you all are hopefully quite familiar with from this morning shows very clearly that the navigation team is not there to primarily get people inside.

We do not have enough housing.

We do not have enough shelter.

Let's start focusing on the things that work.

We claim to be data-driven.

We have the data.

Let's start putting some funding behind it.

You all just recently expanded under Council Member Sawant's leadership the encampment ordinance that will allow now up to 40 encampments.

Let's start funding those.

Let's start putting people inside and let's stop just completely traumatizing folks who are living outside and allow them to maintain the little bits of shred of dignity that they have left.

I am happy to bring you handfuls of vendors that have lost everything in these sweeps.

A vendor that just this week came in crying because they just spent $130 of their hard-earned money on a mattress in order to be a little bit more comfortable, and that was taken by the navigation team, one of the last comforts that they have outside.

I only have 20 seconds left.

Some of you have meetings with the Housing for All Coalition coming up.

For those of you who have not gotten back to us, I'm asking that you take the time to hear from your constituents and those who are living outside.

Council Member Peterson, welcome to the Council.

You are one individual that has not gotten back to us.

I hope that you do the duty and meet with the Housing for All Coalition.

Two votes followed by Harold Odom.

My name is Sue Hodes.

Excellent.

Okay, no problem.

So I'm a citizen homelessness activist with Housing for All Coalition for the past three or so years.

There is almost nothing new today about the city's inhumane torture of sweeping fragile homeless people instead of garbage, that's what you sweep, not people, garbage, and not allowing more humane conditions.

Until adequate housing is created in Seattle, the only difference is the NAV team now, their behavior is more unjust than ever, sweeping without any notices.

It's wrong, as everybody's saying before me.

Even in the NAV team's own report, they say 45 out of 197 people, October, December through 2019, that were swept, 6% arrive at some kind of shelter.

Where do the rest of the people go?

They go to another encampment.

They get swept again.

And tiny house villages?

I know this is not in your purview exactly, but Mayor Durkin says she will never allow the Church of Grace to sponsor, pay for the North Lake tiny house village.

What is that about?

Reducing tiny house village beds?

This challenges common sense and compassion.

And just as a note, Mayor Durkin, in her ignorance, is acting extremely mean, and it will be all of our citizens' job to elect someone who actually cares about all citizens of Seattle.

The 9th Circuit Supreme Court ruling in the case of Martin v. the City of Boise, including the State of Washington, makes it illegal to prohibit encampment in public spaces unless there are adequate homes for 100% of the campers.

We know that's not true in Seattle.

Seattle is a visiting and violating the law.

Do we not care in Seattle until you're sued and sued and sued again?

The three-year-running Sunday Rainier Pop-Up Kitchen, where housed community members work with unhoused neighbors, has served over 100 meals per week.

But in the last four or so months, just a minute, have dropped numbers to 80.

No, I just noticed that your time has expired.

For fairness, it has to be the same for everybody.

I'm sorry.

Stop all the sweeps.

Stop the sweeps now.

Provide real garbage, real outhouses, and internet services.

No sweeps to people.

Thank you.

And then next will be Harold.

Good afternoon, Council.

A lot has been said, and I'm not going to repeat it.

But Josh, you asked what Lehigh could do.

I'm from Lived Experience Coalition.

This week, good friend Darren died at Tiny House Village.

We haven't got a memorial yet.

You can do that.

We have domestic violence.

I walked to get a shower today.

Someone was let back in the camp.

after having given someone a black eye.

That's your fault, because you're not holding providers accountable.

You're letting them get away with this.

Two days before that, someone came in with five officers and demanded to be back in his house drunk at 1.30 in the morning.

That's your fault.

You're not holding people accountable.

It is not the city of Seattle.

That's a dress that providers hide behind.

If you let that continue, What are we going to do?

Blame the homeless, which someone just did?

The homeless are a victim of what's going on in this city.

Great wages, great development, but who are we putting out of housing?

Those people that are on the street and dying.

I've met with some of you at the bus stop, restaurant, lived experience coalition.

just came back from the National Alliance for End Homelessness, and there's a lot of great new ideas, but our street's gonna look bad for like five years or so.

Do you have the political will to tell your constituents, give us time?

Stop the sweeps, you don't have to do it day after day after day.

Our street's gonna look bad, because for every one person we get in, unfortunately, two become unhomeless, or homeless.

Stats are going to be stats, but we have to have compassion, political will.

We have to do something besides the sweeps.

The navigation team split it up.

It's not the navigation team.

We have officers run rampant in this city doing things they shouldn't be doing.

Consent decree, remember that.

There was a reason for it.

Thank you.

Your time is expired.

Thank you.

All right, well, thank you, everybody.

I think that's everyone who signed up for public comment.

I appreciate everybody's comments, and I definitely encourage everybody to stay for the rest of the meeting.

We're going to get a report now from the navigation team and address a lot of the issues that were raised.

So proceeding first to the first item of business, it is the nav team report.

I'm going to invite everybody up to the table.

here who is going to present.

I believe we have Director Johnson, as well as some other folks from HSD.

And I was about to say, and Mr. Clerk, please join us at the table.

Sorry.

Well, thank you so much everybody for coming down here to give us the update from the 2019 NAVTEAM data and report.

Everybody should have received and was circulated by Jeff on central staff a memo summarizing a lot of the data and the findings.

We've also received information from the department that was circulated.

I think that we'll go ahead and start off here just by getting a presentation from the department, and then I'm sure members of the committee will have some questions, and we can go through those.

So, Director, if you want to take it away, or someone, and first, maybe, if we can do some introductions for the folks from HSD, and then if you want to take it away on your presentation.

Happy to.

Thank you.

Jason Johnson with the Human Services Department.

August Drake Erickson, Operations Manager of the Navigation Team, Human Services Department.

And I'm Tara Beck.

I'm the Director of the Navigation Team, also from the Human Services Department.

Jeff Sims, Council of Central Staff.

Jacob Thorpe, Council Member Lewis' staff.

Great.

Thanks for the opportunity to be with you.

Appreciate the opportunity to talk through the report.

And I want to just start by acknowledging the very sobering commentary that we heard during public comment.

It is not lost on us the incredible responsibility we have as a department to engage with populations across this community that are struggling and are incredibly vulnerable.

We take that responsibility very seriously and that includes the work that we do in administering the navigation team.

So I just want to acknowledge that I am sitting with what I heard and very much always when I hear the public comment, especially comment from people with lived experience, I hold that as important data as I continue to lead the efforts of the Human Services Department.

The Navigation Team is the city's leading street-level response to unsheltered crisis impacting communities across Seattle.

Since launching in 2017, the team has connected hundreds of people to shelter, helping vulnerable people move away from inhumane living conditions and into shelter resources, while removing the most unsafe encampments that harm people living unsheltered and the broader community.

The team has evolved its practices, partnerships, and reporting since its inception.

However, at its core, it remains a city-controlled resource for dispatching response to areas across the city, helping people in crisis.

This is important to the city of Seattle for several reasons.

First, the navigation team is the city's frontline crisis response to thousands of customer requests to assist people experiencing homelessness and respond to the associated impacts of people living unsheltered.

The navigation team outreach is complementary to the work of the 10 other outreach providers that the city contracts with.

Secondly, the city has a responsibility to ensure its right-of-ways are accessible, free of debris, sharps, litter, and human waste.

This means maintaining public access to our sidewalks, parks, recreational facilities, trails, and athletic fields.

And finally, the navigation team is uniquely situated to gather a wide cadre of city and community resources that are needed to properly help people living in unmanaged encampments and the surrounding environments.

Today I'm joined by Tara Beck, director of the navigation team, who has been serving in this leadership role since December of 2019. Before holding this important position, Tara was lead planner engaged in navigation team reporting and the partnership with the city auditor's office.

She will be taking you through today's presentation.

I'm also joined by August Drake Erickson navigation teams operations manager August is responsible for coordinating nav team activities and has been a key member of the team serving in this capacity since the team's inception.

She should be able to answer most of your operational questions.

I want to acknowledge that you may have questions related to the auditor's latest report on garbage and debris removal from the city.

The department received this report and is making our way through the recommendations.

We are not here today to discuss that report.

or our next steps.

I'm happy to return to Council Committee another time for such a discussion and believe that we will be on the March agenda.

Yes, and Director, if I could just interrupt for one second.

I should have said that at the beginning of the presentation and for the purpose of folks in the galleries at a vacation as well, that we are scheduled actually to have you return next month to talk about that report already.

So, today's hearing will purely be about the 2019 report.

Discussing the audit that was recently released is going to be reserved to the next committee meeting.

Great.

Thank you.

I also want to acknowledge that there have been some navigation team personnel issues reported in recent weeks.

We are not in a position today to discuss any information related to these reports as HR from both HSD and SPD are actively investigating these reports.

Today, your request and our focus will be on the 2019 data, as reported through the navigation team's Q1 proviso report, highlighting the team's 2019 referral process, outcomes, information about encampments and obstructions, and early diversion strategies.

And we also will specifically focus on some key questions committee chair Lewis asked of the department in preparation for today.

With that, I want to hand the presentation over to Tara in August.

I hope that you can allow Tara to move through the information she's prepared, knowing that we'll have ample time for questions and discussions.

I look forward to a constructive discussion with you, and thanks again for having us.

Thank you.

My name is Tara Beck.

I'm the director of the navigation team as of December 2019. And I want to thank you for allowing us to use our PowerPoint presentation today and understand how to move forward for the future.

But thank you for that.

The navigation team is a nationally recognized innovative service model that combines a diverse set of professionals to address the needs of individuals experiencing homelessness and address the impacts of unsanctioned encampments in the city of Seattle.

Since launching in 2017, the team has connected hundreds of people to shelter and has played a leading role in addressing public health and safety concerns associated with unmanaged encampments.

Connecting individuals to shelter is a core function of navigation teamwork.

This slide provides an overview of the shelter referral process, and I want to highlight that every individual that the team engages with is offered shelter.

In 2019, the navigation team made...

Sorry, just one moment.

I think Council Member Sawant has a question.

I don't have a question, but with your indulgence, Chair Lewis, I just, at the very least, even if this has zero impact on the way the presentation goes, I just feel compelled to say for the record, it's completely out of touch for you all to give this presentation after you, even Mr. Johnson, acknowledged that you've heard this public testimony, but this is not news to you.

what Erica Barnett or KUW or Como have reported, this is not news to you.

It's not news to the mayor's office that the sweeps are not working, and there's a reason why people use the word sweeps.

It's because it's sweeping people from public spaces, which is the only space they have, and not providing them an alternative.

I just cannot wrap my head around how out of touch this sort of bureaucratic presentation this is.

You're saying, you're doing all this, this is your frontline job, but it's not happening.

six people, six people.

I just, I cannot dig this.

And you know, there's going to be ample opportunity for us to drill down into cross-examining what the presentation provides today, but I'd like to let them get through the presentation first and then we can open it up to questions and commentary.

So, but I do appreciate that you probably speak for some other members of the committee in your remarks.

But I want the presentation to finish before we, otherwise we might be here all afternoon.

I request just a restatement of, I didn't hear what the last sentence was.

I thought I heard you say that everybody has, gets access to referral.

Every individual that the team engages with is offered shelter.

every individual that the navigation team engages with is offered shelter.

Recognizing that there are people in encampments that the team does not have a chance to engage with, that The NAV team is not sent out to encampments that are not subject to the MDARS through 72 and the 72-hour notice.

And recognizing that the team is not required to be engaged for the CPT and bike police removals.

So the number, the universe of people that the navigation team actually engages with, appears to be very, very small.

Every individual that the team engages with, including those that we partner with CPT and bikes, for that work is offered shelter, storage, and supportive services.

In 2019, the navigation team.

I'm so sorry.

This is not working.

If you could pause for just a moment.

I do just want to say to everyone in the gallery, the presenters listened patiently to everyone's public commentary.

So did the members of this committee.

Trust me, there's going to be tough questions asked of all the presenters.

We are going to deep dive into this presentation.

I would just ask that members of the gallery please extend the same courtesy and respect to the representatives from HSD that they extended during the public comment.

I would ask.

you to extend the same courtesy to members of the committee that might have views that diverge from yours.

With that, I do want to recognize Council Member Sawant for another question.

I appreciate that, Chair Lewis, and I also understand the position you're in, and I just wanted to add one more thing specifically on the interaction, you know, on every person being offered shelter, that's simply not true.

We have one person sitting here right now who says they've never been offered shelter during the sweeps.

And I know that this is not an anecdotal inference here because I have talked to many dozens, probably hundreds at this point, homeless people, people who have experienced homelessness.

Not one person has said to me that the sweeps helped them.

They all say that they heard them.

And so I would really urge you, with the chair's permission, to take that into account when you, and not have a tone-deaf presentation.

And it is data-driven.

What I'm saying is data-driven is what I'm trying to say.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Just to put a finer point on the data-driven analysis that we have in front of you, and you know, believe me, we do want to hear the rest of your presentation.

But I think that where we're having a hard time accepting that statement that Council Member Herbold asked for clarification on is that it's also not congruent with the data that has been provided.

We see here on the unduplicated rates of referrals, that there's only been 24% of the population who had been contacted by the navigation team.

And again, this is attachment A on navigation team performance measures, so it's not taking into account any other entity that's reached out to our folks experiencing homelessness.

Only 24% of those had been offered a referral to shelter, and we'll get into this later, but only 6% had actually arrived at that shelter.

So I think we can circle back to this after the presentation, but our concern, my concern, I'll speak for myself, my concern is that the statement that everyone that we come into contact with is offered shelter is just not reflected in the rate of referral to shelters according to the navigation team's own performance metrics.

And I'd also propose, Mr. Chair, that I just want to make sure that we're being really clear with the public.

When we have the presentation in front of us, the slide in front of us says navigation team referral process.

And my understanding from looking at this data is that this is not specific to the navigation team.

This is more a process slide as it relates to shelter programs, if I'm correct, because we know that there's not 35% exit rate to permanent housing.

just of the individuals who've been referred from the navigation team.

In fact, that's a data point that is still, in my perspective, not clear from the information that's been provided.

So just to clarify, it does seem like this slide needs a different title.

And to clarify as well, this is specific to the shelter process.

Is that correct?

My next comments actually talk about that exact thing.

Thank you.

Sorry, Jeff, do you have something to clarify?

Sure.

I just want to make sure that I'm clear on what is attachment A and the materials that were provided.

And I apologize if the label was not clear enough.

I do understand that the navigation team offers shelter during every engagement that happens.

So as a person is approached that they are told that they have the opportunity to enter shelter.

And that figure would represent the number of referrals that actually occur, the number of people that say, yes, I would like to go to shelter or get the chance to do that.

And I think that there's an important difference between those two items.

We do know from prior testimony that it often takes multiple engagements with people that have often had challenging interactions with various systems or just are in a traumatic moment at that time, that it takes many touches for them to accept referrals.

So there's an important distinction between just being offered and the number that I accept as well.

Thank you, and several of the points that you're raising are addressed further in our presentation, so I thank you for that.

So 973 referrals to shelter, and an analysis, a recent analysis of other city-funded outreach providers shows that the navigation team referral rate is actually comparable to that of other city-funded outreach programs.

So when we talk about the utilization rate, Seattle shelters overall have a 97% utilization rate, which means they're receiving referred individuals and operating almost full capacity.

Of those that enter shelter and receive support, we are seeing a 35% successful exit rate to permanent housing.

And the navigation team plays a key role in our system's effort to reduce unsheltered homelessness and to exit people to permanent housing.

On the next slide, to clarify Mr. Chair, if I may.

Yes, Council Member Mosqueda.

Just to clarify, so my statement is accurate that this is actually a reflection of the shelter systems as a whole.

I would assume that the 97% usage rate includes mats on the floor, shelters, and tiny homes, is that correct?

What what we do have I do have a couple of data points specific to Lake Union Village Which is a hundred percent NAV team referral that has a 36 percent exit rate to permanent housing And the Navigation Center also navigation team only referrals has an exit rate of 32 percent exits to permanent housing I think that maybe I'm confusing things and director Johnson What is the number?

970

You mentioned the word process, which is in the title of this slide.

This is meant to show the process that moves people from unsheltered homelessness into housing.

The 973 individuals, the 97% usage rate is meant to show that we have a pretty much full shelter system and so it takes significant work to get individuals inside of those shelters.

We're really thankful that the navigation team has some set-aside beds that are held for the navigation team and for nav team referrals.

Tara just mentioned one of those programs.

And then we're trying to also highlight that 35% of those that exit these shelter programs are exiting into permanent housing, and the NAV team referrals are part of that flow.

So this slide is really there to talk about process and talk about what these important navigation team referrals are part of.

And what is 973?

That's the number of unique referrals to shelter that the navigation team had in 2019.

Referrals, not people who arrived.

Correct.

So if we're going to take a 35% rate and try to extrapolate how many people that were not only referred to shelter but accepted shelter and then exited permit housing, it's going to be not 35% of 973, it's going to be 35% of, assuming it's the same across all populations that are in that bed, it's going to be 35% of a very small portion of 973.

That's correct.

It's difficult to do.

It's difficult to do.

I mean, what the 6% is, 6% of shelter referrals were confirmed through HMIS into a shelter within 48 hours.

Now what we know is that when we look out seven days, 14 days, that many of those shelter referrals have made it to shelter.

But the snapshot that we're trying to pay close attention to is the immediacy of that referral.

That's why we look at the 48 hours.

So I think it would be difficult to just take the 6% and make assumptions across the board.

This slide is not intended to make those kind of leaps, but it is intended to just show and attempt to sort of document the referral process and the important role that the NAV team plays in that referral process.

Council Member Sawant, did you have a question as well?

Yeah.

I mean, I had one question, but now I have two questions because of what I just heard Acting Director Johnson say.

Acting Director Johnson just called into question the number that has just been reported, and I'm looking at the article from the Como Reporter, which is titled, Is Seattle Navigation Team Producing Results, which is something that has been quoted by a lot of the people in public testimony.

And you said that the 6% moving into shelter is not something that is accurately reflecting the results of the navigation team's work because it's talking about immediate results, not results that come after 24 to 48 hours.

I, to be honest with you, I don't know how to verify your numbers because, you know, you and your department and the mayor's office have done countless reports in my committee last year and the year before, and now you're doing the same thing here, where we have no way of verifying your numbers.

And so, but even if I take the word take the number at face value, it's still actually more troubling to me because when you sweep someone, that moment, what happens to them in their lives is what's important.

So in other words, what answer do you have to this question of what happens to them in the ensuing 48 hours?

Those two days could be devastating for them.

Somebody who, you know, their hard-earned $130 to have a mattress and then that mattress is destroyed or lost or taken away.

What do they do in those two days?

I mean, I feel like we have to at least make an attempt to not have a cavalier approach to this.

I mean, I'm not saying anything is being done willfully, but we do have to have a different approach to this.

And then my original question, it was sort of a question slash comment, is that this slide that we see up there, I have seen that slide many times.

And if it's not about the navigation team, then it's at least non-intentionally misleading, because it says, navigation team referral process.

If you're not somebody who has seen this slide many times and thought a lot about it and talked to dozens of people, you wouldn't know that this is not actually results of the navigation team because that's what it appears to be and that's the intention of it, to appear to give something about some data about the navigation team.

And that's not true because in this slide you clearly say in 2019 the programs that primarily take referrals from the navigation team had an average utilization rate of 97%, an exit rate of permanent housing of 35%.

Obviously, other programs are more successful than the sweeps.

So, yes, those numbers are better.

And I know utilization rate is close to 100% because we don't have enough shelter space.

But I would, at the very least, I think you owe us that you have more honest slides and don't use slides that give numbers that are not actually about the navigation team.

All right, Council Member Mosqueda, this will be the last question now.

I do want to allow the presenters to get through their presentation, at which point we can ask questions until our heart is content.

But Council Member Mosqueda.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, I appreciate it.

And Council Member Swan, I think you're reiterating a point I just made a moment ago and appreciate the clarification that this is not navigation team only outcomes when you look at the second and third icons.

However, it was stated that these, this 793 individuals was referrals from the navigation team, and I'm struggling to see where that number comes from.

I look at appendix or attachment A, and I understand 973 is the total for each quarter in the total referrals to shelter category, but that is a duplicated number.

So are we looking at a duplicated number at 973 that would not necessarily show individuals as it says on the slide?

I'm not clear what document you're referring to.

A of the audit report?

So my understanding is that you have 973 individuals.

If I look at the quarterly breakdown of total referrals to shelter, it totals 973. Now to me, that's an understandable way for you to have arrived at that 973 number if we were looking at referrals to shelter.

However, it says individuals.

You know Allah the conversations we've had over the last two years around data potentially being duplicated or not Provided in a uniform manner.

I just want to make sure I'm clear.

It's 973 73 referrals that are potentially duplicated.

Is that correct?

I see what you're asking about now, and thank you for that.

I see what you're talking about with the discrepancy there, and we'll look into that and get back with you, but thank you for pointing that out.

I see now what you're referring to.

I believe based on having prepared what you're looking at for the attachment A, 973 would be the total of duplicated referrals.

There are individuals that may be encountered more than once, or even when you look at the number of people that actually arrive at shelter, when you get to the deduplicated number, they do not always match.

So you have individuals that accept a referral to shelter, and then make it there, and then reappear on the street, again accept a referral to shelter, and arrive at that shelter.

And so a deduplicated number would only count that individual once, whereas the duplicated number, which is what this would reflect, would count every time that person accepted a referral.

And in this case, it's only the referral, and accepting that referral.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

And this is information data for the 973s over the course of a year?

Correct.

Okay, that's the other piece.

The report talks about a quarter, and okay.

Fantastic, thank you.

Thank you.

You guys can proceed with your presentation.

Thank you.

The navigation team engages and builds relationship with people seven days a week.

This slide shows the total number of engagements from navigation team services, both duplicated and duplicated across 2019. This data illustrates the repeated touch points we have with individuals experiencing homelessness.

As we've mentioned before, each person and their situation is unique and our goal is to assist people in taking steps forward to saying yes to accepting shelter and supportive services.

For many, that yes comes with a unique combination of timing of the offer, engagement with supportive services and other stabilizing factors, and the right shelter resource being available at the time of the offer.

to meet that individual's needs.

And we connect with individuals over time and with compassion, giving them the time they need to get to their own personal yes and accepting alternatives to safer living.

Councilmember Herbold.

And I just, I am struggling so much to understand what that means.

You're talking about a go slow approach when a go slow approach will produce outcomes for individuals, but yet we know 96% of the removals done are exempt from any notice requirements.

I don't, I can't, I can't marry those two statements.

I think what's important for us to remember is that our job as outreach provider, and not just the navigation team, but the city's other 10 funded outreach providers, our job is to meet people where they are at in that moment.

Often our offers of shelter are declined, people aren't ready for their own unique reasons and barriers.

People have agency and personal choice.

And so even though shelter beds are available, that individual has to be willing and able to say yes in any given moment that that offer comes.

Later in the slide, I'll touch on the Dearborn cloverleaf removal that happened a few weeks ago.

And I think that's an interesting illustration.

So there were approximately 39 individuals at that site, both before the operation happened and during that were offered shelter services.

over the course of several days, and only 10 of those individuals accepted a referral.

So here you have an active process where a removal has to happen for safety, public safety, and cleanliness of environment.

And primarily public safety is what drove that need for that removal.

But out of 39 individuals who were offered a sincere bed, beds waiting, only 10 accepted.

And that's every individual's personal choice.

And so our goal is to build relationship And so I think it's important for us to express compassion over time to help use motivational interviewing techniques, to help find out what will help move that individual to accept a yes the next time that the offer comes.

Council Member Herbold, did you have a follow-up to that?

I did not.

I understand that there's complexity to the relationship building aspect of outreach and where people are at offers of shelter, but my question was how can you both say that you are offering people shelter when 96% of the encampment removals are exempt from prior notice requirements?

The prior notice is the time necessary to build the relationships that you're talking about that make it more likely that people accept shelter.

If you're not required, to take that time, how can you possibly say that the offers of shelter have occurred and are an opportunity that people have a chance, have the hours necessary to take advantage of?

One of the exciting developments that happened mid-2019 was the onboarding of system navigators to the navigation team.

And those are specially trained outreach workers that are embedded within the navigation team.

And we have a system navigator on-call response to respond to obstruction work in real time.

And so that's the way that offers of shelter are made, but also system navigators are able to arrive on site when the individual asks for that or accepts that offer for them to come.

So we provide every opportunity that we can to help connect people with services.

Even when prior notice is not required.

One of the things that we provided in our Q1 proviso report was the table of instructions that were not required to have advance notice.

Even with some of those that are not required, we do provide advance notice.

We also, you'll notice that outreach was provided at over 30% of those sites within the two weeks prior to that site being removed.

Again, that's illustrating our dedication to the compassionate service aspect while we are also maintaining accessibility of public rights of way and reducing public health risks associated with unsanctioned encampments.

And Council Member Morales.

Yes, so you said that you gave the example recently of 39 individuals being offered but only 10 accepting.

So when you're offering 39 people shelter, how do you confirm that there are 39 shelter beds available?

With our low acceptance rate, so you see that gap there between the number of individuals that were offered, we offer shelter at Dearborn.

So someone earlier mentioned zoning of sites.

When we zone a large site for a removal, what we're doing is ensuring that we have the number of beds necessary to complete that zone.

And as soon as those beds are full, The whole operation would stop.

What does that mean?

Absolutely stop.

If you're talking to people out on site and you're offering 39 of them shelter, how do you know going in that you have 39 beds to offer?

Would you like to address that?

I don't have this on.

Sorry.

So my question was, if you're offering 39 people shelter, how do you know that there are 39 beds available for them?

In many occasions, we've had outreach go to the site several times prior to an event.

So we have a strong sense that those people have been offered multiple times.

But on the day of the event, what we will often do, we have already kind of structured according to what we have an average of beds each day.

So we'll create a zone knowing that the average period prior, we've maybe had 10 beds.

And so that zone would only kind of encompass what we have on average.

And so the data we have says that there's an average of about six beds available a day.

So I'm trying to reconcile how we would have, how we would know that we had 39 beds available.

If on average we have six beds for that cleanup, we would zone to a six bed.

So it may vary.

So I'm being anecdotal here with 10 beds, but that's how we work our zones to say on average what we have is what we're going to zone to.

And then we move the clean and expand the clean a number of days in order to accommodate the body of work.

So we may have a cleanup that is a one-day process.

We may have a cleanup that is, you know, three, four days so that we can accommodate the ability to offer

I think the important thing to remember is that we know going in on any day how many beds are available for that operation.

How do you know that?

That's my question.

We have a count.

We actually receive.

We receive.

From everybody.

Correct.

So if that's the case, then it seems to me that there shouldn't be a situation where you are removing people from a site without a bed to put them in.

but the rate of, but it's, you know, removals are up, but referrals are flat and acceptance is flat.

So I'm trying to reconcile the information that we have.

We have people who decline.

We do make offers and we have people say they are not ready to go in.

That's why we go back to sites many times.

We want that opportunity to reengage, to reconnect with those people.

We know and our hope is it's a matter of time until people make the decision that they are ready to accept shelter.

Thank you, Chair Lewis.

I just wanted to preface my comments slash questions with just a note that, you know, the underlying problem why this is all happening, just to echo one of the public testimonials, is the lack of affordable housing and intermediate solutions like tiny house villages.

So I just wanted to note that it's really important that the City Council, at least the majority of the City Council, voted on a strong ordinance for expanding tiny house villages.

And now we have the task of funding the, you know, expanded right that we have for tiny house villages.

But I just wanted to note that, you know, while the bureaucrats and employees of these departments are being grilled here really the buck stops with elected officials.

I just wanted to make a note of that and also how wrong it was for the mayor to delay the funding for the LEAD program.

I just wanted to note that in the in the face of tremendous data for success with the LEAD program that was being delayed.

I'm glad the council really help play a role along with the public defenders in pushing that forward.

I just wanted to say that in advance.

On the specific points that you've raised, I really would like to hear from you what, you know, you made us, you put a special emphasis on the relationship and compassion.

I completely agree with it.

The problem though is that because Sweeps have not had a beneficial effect on homeless neighbors.

It's actually the other way around.

I mean, if you will recall that the REACH program quit the navigation team precisely, and you know, you have all read that letter, as well as I have.

In that letter, they make it very clear that it is precisely because their relationships and trust with the homeless neighbors was being eroded dramatically.

That is why they quit the program, because the way the NAF team was being run was not actually conducive to building that trust.

So I feel like the reality is the opposite of what you're saying.

And what you're saying is what we would like to aspire to, but that's not what's happening.

And the second thing I will say in terms of Just to note that Council Member Herbold's question about why are the vast majority of sweeps the no-notice removals?

Why is that happening?

That still has not been answered.

And then the last thing is very important, and I hear this over and over again from the Human Services Department and from the Mayor's Office, that homeless people refuse shelter.

And first of all, we don't have statistics to show how many times that's actually happened because we have people saying that they were never offered shelter.

But I think beyond that, you have to understand, and it has to be brought out into the open, that a lot of times when people refuse shelters, it's because they know it doesn't work for them.

And I will urge you, and I'm happy to send you the specific link from the Seattle Channel, to watch One of the committee meetings that I chaired last year or the year before, where we had homeless neighbors from the Ravenna encampment, which was being swept over and over again, where they said the reason they stopped accepting shelter, this was a young couple that said they stopped accepting shelter, is because their stuff got stolen over and over again and shelter was not working because it was a solution for a few days and then they were uprooted yet again.

Whereas the encampment, even though it's just in tents and in the outside and it's really brutal, still they had friends and neighbors that they were with and they didn't want to be uprooted unless it was something much more long-lasting like a tiny house village or permanent housing.

So I think that has to be drawn out.

All right.

Council Member Mosqueda.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'm aware that you want us to get through this presentation.

I think we're on page 5 of 11 slides here.

There was one comment that I just want to fully understand.

We can come back to it at the end, but I wonder if there's an immediate response.

And I also want to say I think you guys are in a really tough position.

I apologize that you're sort of in this position to attest for something that's really a city program.

And so these questions are not directed at you as individuals or the work that you do as individuals.

It's more a question about the entire program.

So thank you for being here along with Director Johnson to answer these questions for us.

I'm looking for anybody to help answer this question.

In saying that we make an offer to all of the individuals who we are in effect sweeping, or that an offer of shelter is put out there for every location where a sweep will occur, And the question that Council Member Morales asked to say, but how does that get reconciled with the very few limited number of beds each day?

If on average in last quarter, we saw five mats on the ground openings, six beds in enhanced shelter, and one tiny house village, we're talking about 12 beds total on average in night.

Each one of these locations, each one of these 303 locations has more than 12 people, I assume.

So when we say that we are making an offer of shelter, it doesn't sound to me like we're making a meaningful offer of shelter.

If we are knowing that in asking people, would you like to go to shelter?

We are already assuming that a number of them will not go because of either trauma or the fact that they can't stay there with their loved ones or their pet or their kiddos.

It doesn't feel like it's a meaningful offer.

So my question is, how is this lawful?

How is this in compliance with the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals that last year said that you have to have a place for people to stay inside?

There has to be enough shelter beds and housing available as an alternative to sleeping on the sidewalk or in an encampment, that it is unconstitutional to punish people for sleeping on the sidewalk when there are not enough shelter beds.

I don't understand how what we're doing is lawful if we are knowing that there's not enough beds and it's not a meaningful offer of shelter.

And I'll direct that at Director Johnson.

The court case you're referring to was specifically referencing arresting people for sleeping outdoors.

And so that's not happening in Seattle.

And so thank goodness that is outside of the purview of But to answer your question, beds are required for 72-hour encampment removals.

And so the key point that we touched on earlier is that when those beds are full, if we are doing a 72-hour encampment removal and our available beds for that day are full, we get that number of yeses, the whole operation stops.

It does not go forward.

But you aren't doing a 7-2 hour removal.

96% of what you're doing is exempt.

And this is the frustration because I appreciate, as Council Member Mosqueda said, you all are in a tough position.

But the reality is that this all feels very disingenuous.

I'm just going to be very candid.

This feels very disingenuous.

We, you know, 96% of what is the encampments that are happening are exempt from council rules around the 72-hour notice.

And, you know, and now you're using that as a justification for what you're doing, and I have to be honest, you know, to say that the Ninth Circuit is about arresting people and since we're not doing it, it's okay, is just not right.

The fact is that people are getting pushed off the streets, there's nowhere for them to go, we're spending an incredible amount of money moving people from one place to another without actually providing services to them, without actually getting people into shelter.

And then we're using metrics of success, like how much garbage we've cleaned up and how much property we've cleaned up, rather than the true metric of success, which should be how many lives are we saving and how many people are we getting into housing.

That's what our performance-based outcomes should be focused on.

And I haven't heard anybody talk about the real outcomes that we're looking for, which is about protecting people instead of just property and trash cleanup.

I hear you, and the work ahead of us is twofold.

So yes, it is about connecting people to the services they need, and it is about making sure that our sidewalks, our parks, our trails, our recreational areas are clear of debris, sharps, garbage, human waste.

So that is also a part of our...

But that's not even getting cleaned up.

It's the people who are getting pushed out.

Often we are cleaning areas without having someone move.

So it is both.

And so I think we're, you know, paying a lot of attention, rightfully so, on what happens with individuals.

I think that's critically important.

I know it's critically important to the Human Services Department who has taken on the full responsibility of the nav team work over the last year.

You guys changed the budget so that the human services department would be fully responsible for all aspects of the navigation team.

And, but part of that work is also very logistical coordination of cleanup efforts to make sure that our city is clean, that parks are usable, that sidewalks are passable, and that there's a lot of effort that also goes into that.

So that obstruction work that you're talking about now is very much about accessibility and making sure that debris and dangerous materials were removed from city sidewalks, city parks, and public right-of-ways.

I'd like to offer that some of the comments that you're making are addressed as we go further on, if it's okay to proceed.

I also want to thank Director Johnson for mentioning the litter removal work that we do.

We don't have a slide that talks about that.

But that work is in service of the people that are actually living in encampments that are not scheduled for removal.

We go in and not only offer outreach services, but remove debris so that the living conditions at that location are better for those individuals in real time.

And so I appreciate that you call that out.

I've advanced, we've advanced the slide to start talking about removals, which there's lots of focus on here at the table.

So you'll notice in 2019 that the number of 72-hour removals decreased between Qs 2 and 4. 72-hour removals, encampments that are subject to that process are the largest, most unsafe encampments that have the greatest risk to public health and safety.

These also require significant resources with respect to time, labor, and equipment to conduct the removal.

and often take multiple days to complete.

Outreach by the navigation team and other city-funded outreach providers occur before and during 72-hour encampment cleanups, and shelter is offered to 100% of those individuals.

And as we said previously, if our shelter beds are full, the work would stop.

If we advance to the next slide, this shows obstruction work.

You'll notice an increase between Qs 2 and 3. And this increase in obstruction work is attributed to the expansion of NAV team operations to seven days a week, as well as to a focused effort to address obstructions earlier to prevent them from growing into larger and more unsafe sites that require more resources to address.

As it relates specifically to the obstruction work that you're doing, I in theory understand and support the efforts to do immediate removals when things are truly obstructions and true hazards that are actually impeding the public's ability to use streets, sidewalks, and active uses of parks.

But we don't have any way of confirming that that is how you are going about in classifying We specifically requested a description of the obstructions that warranted an exemption from notice requirements.

This was a reporting requirement of this proviso report.

This was not provided.

We are trying to exercise our oversight as a body.

And, you know, the legislation that Councilmember O'Brien in 2017 proposed actually looked very much like what you say you were doing, but we don't have any way of knowing.

That legislation allowed for immediate removals on sidewalks and street right-of-ways and in active uses of parks.

But we don't today have any way of confirming that that is actually what is happening.

And so that is why we've asked for that information, so that we can exercise an appropriate oversight role.

So I ask you, what do you recommend we do, understanding our responsibility and our interest in making sure that things are not being classified as obstructions, and immediate hazards as a way to basically get around the requirements for advance notice, the requirements that encampments not be removed unless there is, I mean, to me, there's a built-in incentive here, and I really hope that that's not what's happening.

The fact that 72-hour removals can only happen if there is available shelter, and we know that there is very, very little available shelter, to me that creates a situation, a bind for you guys, where you're incentivized to classify things as obstructions, as immediate hazards, because you don't have the shelter to offer.

And that's a way for you to be able to do the work without having You know, what I think we all collectively agree is a limitation on that work, is an important limitation on that work, is a limitation on that work that is based on, in people's basic human rights, and is based on what you say is what's most important to you, which is holding the importance of this work and the impacts that it has on people.

I appreciate your question about descriptions of obstructions that warrant an exemption.

Am I okay to continue?

I'm eager to hear the answer.

And that is actually addressed on our next slide.

So the database that stores operations information, as requested in the table in the proviso, does not contain the level of detail about the site conditions that I think that you were looking for.

That detailed information does exist, but it exists separately from that database It exists in what's called site journals, and we have in the slide part of the first page of the site journal.

Site journals are posted online and are publicly accessible.

So this, the picture that's up there is a part of a site journal from an obstruction removal that happened at Forth and Yesler on January 11th.

This whole site journal which contains photos and lots of detailed information about that site prior to removal.

is posted up on the website.

The link is embedded in the PowerPoint electronic version.

And so that's where you can see the site characteristics.

And I know it's hard to see up there, but if you go online, you'll be able to see the site characteristics for each obstruction.

And I think that might be the level of granularity that you're looking for.

Unfortunately, you know, in pulling data for that table, it doesn't exist in that database.

And so I just want to point out that this is where it exists.

It is publicly accessible to you all, but also to the general public who are interested in that.

Is that something you could provide?

I'm sorry, Chair.

Excuse me.

Sorry, Council Member Juarez and...

So, Council Member Juarez, Morales, and Sawant, I have a very quick question first.

And that's just that in this site journal...

kind of spreadsheet that you guys have.

I notice there's a number of characteristics and health conditions that are identified at the site.

Is this information aggregated in any way?

Is it made available in any kind of public dashboard?

Is there a way to sort of sort and view this information, not only for us as council members, but members of the public to kind of understand better and more broadly the nature of these encampments?

Because I think this does get to the information that Council Member Herbold and others have alluded to throughout the committee meeting of information that we would like to have be more forward facing and more accessible about the nature of the camps that are being deemed obstructions and exceptions to the 72-hour rule.

So I just wanted to, this is, I guess, just more of a question about how this data currently is being provided in ways that we could make it more accessible and easier to break down and aggregate.

And that's something we can definitely look into.

And if a higher level of detail is needed, we can work with our data analysts to devise a way to make sure that that is easily pullable in a format that's easy to understand.

And we're certainly welcome, glad to work on that.

Great, thank you.

Council Member Juarez.

Thank you.

First of all, thank you.

I know you guys have been pulling this information, and I want to reiterate what Councilmember Mesquite and some of my colleagues have shared.

It's not easy, and I know we're not, we don't mean this personally, because we, as Councilmember Morales and so on pointed out, and most, of course, Councilmember Herbold, That's just our duty in the legislative branch to say, to be able to respond to, particularly those of us that represent districts that are on the ground and working with the NAV team.

I have a few questions.

First of all, going to the site journal and the sheet, so, and you know, these are just basic ones, like when was it developed?

Who developed it?

And is there an opportunity to revisit the checklist?

That's one section.

And the other section is just looking at it, and I've seen these before, when you have the site characteristics and the health conditions, like you have criminal activity, open alcohol, I'm wondering how subjective they are and who makes the decision and what that means.

So that was a two-part question.

Thank you.

We work strictly by the rules set for us by 1701 rule, the FAS 1701 rule, which defines many of these different characteristics.

So as you all well know, the 1701 provides eight different points that we use that pretty much are kind of alluded to, or I don't have a better word, that we, focus on in order to do our body of work.

So one of the things that's really important to say is that we want you to feel that we have great integrity, which is why we also photo journal.

So at every single site that we go to, there's a minimum of six photographs taken at every single site so that it begins to give you some idea of what that site looks like before we start any engagement.

And then photos are taken as we leave the site.

So every field coordinator is trained to do that body of work by those same standard operating practices.

What I'm really getting at is when was this developed, who developed it, and do we have an opportunity, knowing what we know, since we declared our war on homelessness in 2015, can we do that?

Those are just kind of wonky questions that I have.

Well, we're getting there.

This was developed first in 2016. It was developed by me. with the help of the health department at that time.

It has been reviewed several times.

We are now about to move to a form that allows us to prioritize better in our new NAPAP 2.0.

And that work was advised by the unhoused community as to how to reformat this form.

And we will continue to photojournal as well.

I have a quick follow-up based on Councilmember Juarez's question, then I'll call on Councilmember Morales and so on.

I actually had a similar observation, Council Member Juarez, of some of the different categories.

I mean, my favorite one is probably disorganized.

I mean, that could describe my desk, which could be swept without notice, I guess.

But I would, just wanted to ask more broadly about the different conditions.

Are they weighted the same or are they weighted differently?

Because there's- They're weighted the same.

They're weighted the same.

So like hazardous materials and fires are weighted, and chemical waste.

is weighted the same as disorganized?

So what she was whispering is that our new prioritization actually is weighted differently.

So the vulnerability, that was one of the things that the on-house community brought to our attention, that we needed to be more critical in our thinking.

And so vulnerability of the community has heavier weights in the new system that will be rolled out.

Thank you.

Council Member Morales.

Sure, so I, well, I feel like I need to preface this by saying that as a former Seattle Human Rights Commissioner and somebody who's been advocating against this operational method for a while, you probably sense my frustration that we are still engaging in this activity at all, but Now that we have a database in place, we've had some requests for a little bit more input on the kind of data that would help us with our oversight in our oversight role.

My question to you is if you've got the data here and we would like to see it in a way that is more helpful, I'd like to request that you include this analysis and summary in your quarterly reports to us so that we don't have to ask for it every time.

It's just something that is regularly made available to us so that we can, I think we need to engage in our oversight role of what this process is doing.

Thank you.

And Council Member Swant.

Thank you, Chair Lewis.

And first, I just wanted to echo what you said.

I mean, some of the criteria, like disorganized, that could apply to housed people, but we don't.

Your desk won't get swept.

My desk gets disorganized, too, and it won't be swept.

And I don't mean to be facetious.

I'm saying that this is what homeless neighbors face And I think it is important that you draw out some of the criteria that the navigation team seems to use.

I don't, in my view, are not humane because, I mean, house people are disorganized.

How do you stay organized when you have nothing going for you?

I don't think that's a very fair criterion.

or at the very least you have to explain what you mean by that.

But my question is, just to follow up from the questioning from Council Member Herbold, and maybe this got answered and I missed it and I apologize if that's the case, but if you're not allowed to do 72-hour notice removals without shelter available, And given that there is little to no shelter available at any given moment, given the crisis in our city, then mathematically the question is, Does that mean that virtually all the removals that are happening are happening on the obstruction, in the name of obstruction?

And then so that brings back the same question, which is how do you define obstruction and can the council have oversight on that?

Because this is now we're talking about the citywide operation of sweeps primarily being conducted with no notice and primarily presumably being conducted on the question of on the pretext of obstruction.

It's hard to imagine that every single sweep that happens in that way is actually justifiable from an obstruction standpoint.

So you mentioned a couple of points and I'm glad that the site journal as in its current state is posted.

We are on the cusp and engaging in continuous quality improvement and our improvements in our data collection that happened in 2019 and some of our technological advances have been really instrumental in our ability to report higher quality data to you.

And that we're continuing that continuous improvement.

And so we are on the cusp of a new weighted prioritization system.

In March, we hope to launch our Nav App 2.0.

And so I'll be excited to bring that work back to you and to show you, you know, this is an old form from the beginning of the navigation team's work.

And we are engaged in that quality improvement.

And I'll be excited to show you the enhancement The definition of what an obstruction is, in the 1701, obstructions are defined as tents, personal property, garbage, debris or other objects related to an encampment that are in a city park or on a public sidewalk.

that interfere with the pedestrian or transportation purposes of public rights-of-way or interfere with areas that are necessary for or essential to the intended use of public property or facility.

And I think when I think about obstruction work, what really resonates most for me is the accessibility piece for those that might have limited site or mobility access needs.

In 2019, we were, the navigation team was contacted by, a downtown employer whose employee uses a wheelchair and was having to drive in the busy street during commute time because the sidewalk was impassable with their chair.

And they wrote to us and asked for assistance in that.

And for me, that access issue is is at the core of what a city has responsibility for, for all of its citizens.

And it's not for us to say, is a sidewalk passable enough for someone with limited sight or mobility issues?

It's an important access issue.

And our obstruction work does help the city maintain access for all individuals.

Yes, Council Member Herbold, followed by Council Member Mosqueda.

Thank you.

I would request that the executive consider defining obstruction as it relates to parks as only those instances that interfere with a planned or programmed park use, or those places within a park that are defined as a critically sensitive area.

I am not asking that you stop encampment removals in parks.

I'm asking that you consider giving prior notice, doing outreach, only doing the removals if there is available shelter, and committing to storage requirements, and doing that for encampments and parks when they're not in the middle of a playground or a ball field, or they're not in an environmentally critical area.

I think that is a reasonable question, a reasonable request, and I respectfully request that you consider that change to your protocols.

Thank you for that feedback.

We'll follow up with you on that.

Okay, and Council Member Mosqueda?

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

So what happens to an individual when they are on a sidewalk, in a public place, in a park?

What type of citation is given to them?

Last year, we had a presentation that talked about the number of citations given.

And I think it was in conjunction with another element of the budget discussions last year.

But I am wondering what happens to these individuals.

Are they given a citation?

Currently, Parks is not performing exclusions from Parks in relationship to any homelessness or unhoused activities.

So in Parks, they are not doing that.

So you'll have to follow up with Parks to find out more about their exclusion rules.

So that relates to the Parks Department.

What about the individuals who are part of the community police team and the patrol officers?

They have not, we have not had a person cited.

for being on a sidewalk or obstructing, not in 2019 that I'm aware of.

And again, we can follow up to see if there's been any in 2020.

When individuals are approached for obstruction related issues with belongings that are impeding the right of way, there's a request that they move and a conversation that happens.

The request is offered, we offer storage of belongings, offer to have our system navigators come and do outreach and make offer of shelter.

For individuals that don't want a system navigator to come on site, they do receive a card with shelter information on it should they choose to access on their own.

We also allow people time to move their belongings.

So the conversation is, hey, your belongings are impeding the sidewalk.

We're going to have to ask you to move.

We can give you some time to pack up.

Would you like storage?

Are you interested in shelter?

Would you like a system navigator to come on site?

And we're finding that individuals are willing to comply with that move.

Some do accept the offer for the system navigator to come and have that more meaningful conversation.

Okay, you can proceed with your presentation.

Thank you.

So we've talked about shelter referrals and enrollments, and that's what's illustrated on this slide.

It shows referrals to shelter paired with and shelter enrollment data.

So a referral is defined as an individual that has said yes to a specific shelter bed.

And an enrollment in the green on this slide is defined as the number of individuals that complete an intake at shelter within 48 hours from the time of a referral takes place.

Late 2019, we had the ability for our system navigators to offer transportation, and we didn't have that ability prior to that.

And so there was a question from Council Member Swan earlier about what happens in that 48 hours.

So once an individual accepts a shelter bed, it's their choice how they get there and the timing when they choose to arrive.

And that bed is, we communicate directly with that shelter, letting them know that that bed is now taken by an individual, who the individual is, in the approximate time that they will show up.

So it's on an individual's own choice how they arrive.

We are pleased that now our system navigators are able to transport individuals to shelter.

And I think that's important to reduce transportation barriers, very real transportation barriers for people that have.

have getting from a site to a shelter.

And we can also transport their belongings.

And so our goal is to make it as easy as possible, not only for people to say yes to that shelter referral, but then to help them get there, to help them get there right away.

We know the immediacy of that next step is often very important.

So I have a quick question as this relates to the tiny house villages and the transitional encampments.

So during our conversation over the last couple weeks on the permitting ordinance, we heard a lot of testimony, talked to a lot of stakeholders who manage transitional encampments that exclusively take NAVTEAM referrals.

So I just wonder if you could give us a brief overview of how many transitional encampments primarily take NAVTEAM referrals.

And then maybe just comment on What I believe is the low vacancy rate and maybe you can confirm but it seems like it I want you to confirm if it's accurate that there's an average of one opening per day from the tiny house village system that exclusively take NAVTEAM referrals, and if that's the case, and maybe this is beyond the scope of your presentation, is it because we have a bottleneck of folks that are moving on at that point to the permanent supportive housing, so we have a lot of folks that are sort of stuck in that transitional and that's creating a demand issue or a supply issue.

And if that's the case, would additional transitional encampments be something that would be useful for getting more folks into placements based on NAVTEAM contact?

We do know from our work with individuals that tiny house villages are the most sought after resource and also the least frequently available resource.

I know that HSD is continually evaluating the mix of its investments and I'll let Director Johnson speak to more broadly to that system if he has comments.

Yeah, so the availability of a shelter bed is definitely an issue.

And it is part of our work to consistently work toward adding to the capacity of our emergency housing availability.

And we do that in two parts.

We do that by creating more shelter beds, by creating more tiny house villages, a variety of different kinds of or types of emergency shelter.

But we also do that by trying to make sure that there is throughput out of those shelters and into housing.

What we're seeing with the tiny house villages specifically is that, as Tara just said, they are the resource that, when available, people are most likely to say yes to.

This is an environment, a non-congregate environment, where an individual has their own space, a door to lock, roof overhead, hard walls.

It is not a congregate shelter space.

It also has all of the enhancements of many of our enhanced shelters.

So it has case management, it has hygiene, it has meals, it has a variety of the enhancements that we want in place for all of our shelters, but some of the shelters are not possible due to some of our basic shelters, due to a day use during the day or size restrictions, et cetera.

But what's really exciting, and I just had the opportunity to meet with Lehigh yesterday, and what they were able to share is some of their data that shows that the tiny house villages overall are exiting people into permanent housing at the same or slightly higher rate than any of our enhanced shelters.

When you add in movement across other shelters or transitional housing, then that throughput in those programs reaches close to 60%.

So we're seeing that One, this is a resource that people living unsheltered that we're engaged with through the navigation team want.

We're seeing that there are the services that we know people need available at those sites, and we're seeing the throughput that we want in those programs.

Those three elements put together make us both encouraged by the programs that we have existing, but also have us looking at how we might be able to add more.

Council Member Mosqueda and then Council Member Riles.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I think the chair's point is really well taken.

When he's asking where is the bottleneck, and we know that there's only five mats on the floor, shelter, six enhanced shelter, and one tiny house village available, on average in last quarter, then really it does seem like the navigation team is not able to navigate people anywhere if the number of beds is so low.

Let's assume best intentions that if there were the ability to get folks into available beds, then there would be a higher success rate.

But right now, my concern is the navigation team isn't able to navigate people into those shelters without opening.

I mean, we have a...

$7.67 million total for the navigation team.

If you break that down over a quarter, it's $1.919 million a quarter.

If we were only able to get 45 individuals into shelter, that breaks down to around $42,600 per person in that quarter.

I mean, we think that it would be a much, I think it would be a really great answer to the chair's question.

How could we better utilize that $1.9 million a quarter and allocate it to creating the tiny homes, to creating the enhanced shelters that we know have high success rates, not to mention the affordable housing that we need?

So that I feel like for us, as we have a dialogue about how to best utilize our public dollars, I think it's also an answer to the question that you have asked.

How do we help navigate people into shelter?

It doesn't feel like we have created the tools for this program to be successful when we don't have the shelters available.

It doesn't feel like we're doing the right thing at this point when we don't have enough shelters when police are involved with moving folks from corner to corner because folks don't feel safe into going to shelter or there's not a a bed available for them.

So, again, when you look at the total number of dollars that is allocated to this program and only 45 individuals got into shelter, I think the real financial cost comes into, you know, the call to the question around whether or not we should be investing into tiny homes or enhanced shelters.

And then, you know, secondly, I think that it's important for us to note Of the 45 people, we still don't have the data on how many of those got into permanent supportive housing or affordable housing.

And that is still a data point that I'd love for us to get on a quarterly basis as well.

I applaud you for including the number of open beds.

I know that you've heard from me for two years.

a desire to see that.

And last quarter, it was also something I asked for.

And now in this report, I see we've gone back about five quarters.

I appreciate that.

But I think what it helps us to underscore is that it is not possible to navigate people into shelter, let alone housing, when we are not directing our dollars in that way.

And it appears that that would be a better use of our dollars versus the $42,000 per person it has taken to get into one shelter.

Two points of clarification, if I could.

One, the 45 is a 45. That is the number of people that we have confirmed have entered into shelter after a 48-hour period.

It is not to say that any of our other engagements have not successfully resulted in a shelter placement.

It could have taken more time.

But the data that you have here, the 45, it's not to say that in the fourth quarter the navigation team only resulted in 45 people going to shelter, but it is the data point that we have access to, a slightly imperfect data point, but that shows that 45 individuals made it into shelter within a 48-hour period.

Secondly, you made the comment that the navigation team is not navigating to anything.

And the next slide is really the kind of services that individuals request when there's an engagement.

And I know Tara's going to talk through this in more detail.

But I did want to highlight that while shelter and getting people indoors is our goal, it's not always someone else's goal.

And so you'll see that they may want a connection to case management.

They may need a pair of socks or a pair of work boots.

They may need information.

They may need to get a referral around employment.

So it is, yes, critically important that we are helping people navigate toward shelter, toward getting indoors.

But often, the system navigators and the field coordinators are trying to help people access, therefore navigate, to a variety of different resources.

So I just wanted to call that out.

All right, and Councilmember Morales, did you have a question still?

I did.

And then after you, Councilmember Swann.

So I'm glad to hear that you agree that there's demand for tiny home villages, that that is a good option for people.

Can you give us a sense of how many shelters we need or maybe how many tiny home villages, depending on the size, would actually meet the need that you are experiencing in these approaches?

No, it would be a guess at this point.

I mean, I know by looking into our homeless management information system, that we have well over 20,000 households who are engaged in some kind of effort to seek help because of their housing instability.

We know because of effort to do a one-night census, we have a point in time count of how many people are living unsheltered in our community.

We also know through the kinds of engagement we're able to have, how many folks were engaged with on a regular basis through the navigation team.

But it would take analysis of all of those data points to understand exactly how much shelter would be helpful.

To this point and this discussion about bottleneck, if we built enough shelter, we would then have another bottleneck, which would be at the front door of housing.

So, you know, you will never hear me say, let's not get more shelter.

We need more people to come indoors.

But it does move the goalposts in a way and create a different kind of bottleneck.

So what I'm trying to understand is how many of the newly authorized encampments that we just created we should plan to fund this year because that's gonna be the next step to removing some of this bottleneck.

So we will, I'm sure, be having conversation about how many we'll be funding.

And I think the real important point here is that if folks can't sleep where they are causing obstruction, if they can't sleep any place because that's considered camping and we're not allowing that anymore, if there aren't enough shelter beds, if there aren't places for people to go Where do you propose our homeless neighbors sleep when it's time for them to sleep at night?

I don't necessarily have an answer to that except by saying we share your concern about the enrollment rate and we too want our enrollments.

We would like every offer of shelter to be accepted and enrolled and to meet that goal of more people moving indoors.

to where it's a safer alternative and supportive services are available.

I want to stress that the navigation team that no entity within the city of Seattle is Punishing people for sleeping overnight, that's not something that our city does.

People are able to sleep through the overnight hours and the navigation team does not move individuals during the overnight hours.

People are able to bed down and rest.

That's a fundamental human right that the work of the navigation team absolutely supports.

When we talk about enrollments, I want to stress that Referrals and enrollments, the goal of helping people move indoors is shared, the navigation team shares that responsibility with the 10 other funded outreach programs that the city of Seattle funds.

We all have that responsibility to help individuals say yes to shelter, to help them access other alternatives and other supports.

When we talk about money well spent, it's important that we not just look at the part about getting people indoors.

That is a core, absolutely core mission of the navigation team.

But the other part that we need to remember is the accessibility of our public sidewalks and rights of way.

as well as public health and cleanliness of our green spaces.

And the work of the navigation team supports all of Seattle in many different ways.

And I would stress that while we are all as a system of outreach providers doing better to increase the number of yeses that we get, that the navigation team does serve the whole of Seattle.

Director Johnson raised a point about enrollments.

I just want to stress that the process of matching a referral to an enrollment is a difficult process.

And it's likely that our enrollment numbers are higher than what we see here.

The difficulty comes in two separate databases are collecting this information and holding them with privacy walls across each.

Each of those databases also has, allows individuals to opt out of sharing their information out.

And so the cross-referencing aspect of two different databases is very difficult.

And so it is likely that this is higher.

This is the best that we can do with the individual, individuals that have allowed their information to be shared out.

So that's an important point.

Thank you.

Councilmember Sawant.

And just because of the nature of the problems we face in our city, it's not all just directed at the Human Services Department.

So, you know, my points are also just larger in terms of what our duties are as a council.

And I just, I mean, I strongly agree with Council Member Mosqueda, who just said that, you know, we should be using our resources not on programs that have proven to not work, but on programs that have proven to work.

And I am all for redirecting public funds away from sweeps towards tiny house villages.

But it also compels me to remind the council and members of the public that our movement has been fighting for that.

And unfortunately, the council has not supported those measures.

The people's budget movement in my office have been fighting for that.

Last year, we had a concrete proposal to use the millions spent on sweeps instead to use for council for tiny house villages.

The council voted no on that.

This was 2019. In 2018, My office and the People's Budget Movement proposed to use the millions wasted on sweeps for affordable housing.

The council voted no on that.

In 2017, our movement proposed to proviso city funds to prohibit sweeps.

The council voted no on that.

And in 2017, notably, the People's Budget Movement also had successfully organized a peaceful occupation of this city hall overnight, which many of us were part of.

and which is a very successful peaceful civil disobedience.

And following that, we proposed a proviso of the city funds to prohibit speech, but the council voted no.

And I just, I'm in earnest here urging the council to take progressive measures on this and not simply just direct these questions at the human services department because at the end of the day, they're not elected officials, we are.

And I wanted to also publicly announce, having heard what I just heard, that my office is happy, and we will be doing this now, to bring a supplemental budget amendment to redirect funds away from sweeps to tiny house village funding.

We're going to do that.

And I wanted to...

But I wanted to say that in public view because I want the public to make sure that the council is accountable on these things.

It is not enough.

It's good that we are having this very tough discussion.

But at the same time, it's not enough to put the buck on somebody else's plate.

We have to step up and do this.

And unfortunately, we have had a track record on this dais of not having done that.

And I hope that we do that in the future.

And I'm really encouraged by the fact that we have just passed The winter evictions moratorium legislation and the tiny house zoning flexibility legislation, both of which came from the movement in my office, and I hope that bodes well for the future.

Thank you.

All right, Council Member Muscata, do you have another comment?

So, Director Johnson, you made a comment, and I believe you also echoed it, about the number of individuals referred to shelter beds is not all that you do.

My point was that a navigation team that is working with those who are unsheltered, the ideal goal is to get folks sheltered.

We've also required of the 10 organizations that I believe you're referencing for them to have their primary goal getting people into shelter to the extent that we have said that these organizations have to have 60% of the individuals that they work with I'm glad that we were able to do some of those but we seem to have a different standard of success for the navigation team versus These are just some of the organizations that we've contracted with where they have a requirement that they get 60% of the individuals that they're working with into shelter.

So yes, I understand that shelter is not the only thing that we judge ourselves by, but it seems to be the thing that we are judging our contract organizations by.

Why the discrepancy?

Yeah, so the 60% is a system-wide target.

It is not a mandate by the Human Services Department.

It is a system-wide target that outreach providers get 60% of their referrals moved to shelter.

Does any of the pay get affected by performance costs?

No, there's no performance pay reduction if they don't meet that target.

And, again, this is a system-wide target that has been done countywide, and we put those targets into all of our outreach contracts.

But it is not a mandate.

What I believe Tara shared earlier was that, on average, the NAV team's success rate is very similar to those other outreach programs.

We try to keep ourselves to the exact same standard as our contracted outreach programs.

The one thing that is not standard is the kind of data that we collect.

So there is a lot more data collected on the navigation team than is collected by any other outreach program.

For example, you'll note that we track every single interaction the navigation team has with an individual and then we deduplicate those interactions.

We do not require that level of data from our contracted outreach teams.

So when we look at data from them, we're just getting a snapshot of information about the referrals that they make to shelter, but we're not getting the every single interaction that they make with an individual that finally gets them to say yes.

So there is some...

de-standardization in the kind of data that's collected, much more scrutiny and data expectation on the NAV team than is expected on our contracted providers.

But I just want to restate that 60% is not a mandate.

It is a target.

It is a system-wide target, a target that was sort of facilitated by all home and agreed to by public funders across the region.

And Council Member Herbold, did you have a question?

Also on some standardization around outreach.

Before my question, I just want to confirm.

I thought I heard a statement that we are increasing the number of yeses, but I just want to, again, go to attachment A.

Our total referrals to shelter unduplicated have fallen, and our rate of referral to shelter has fallen.

And given the understanding that we don't know how accurate this data is, the rate and pure number of people arriving at shelter has fallen.

So, I think that's important context setting because we know there are things that can be done to actually improve the outcomes associated with outreach.

One of the things that the The city auditor in October of 2018 identified raising the same concern as they made a recommendation that the executive provide a plan for ensuring navigation team compliance with outreach standards of care.

It laid out five elements that would ensure compliance.

including determining which members of the navigation team would be required to adhere to those standards of care, identifying the compliance measures, how and when that data will be collected, and determining how those measures would be reviewed and evaluated to ensure compliance with standards of care.

I was also contacted last year.

I think I actually sent some correspondence to you from CCS.

They also had the concern that when when these outreach standards of care aren't adhered to, what the result often is is that it actually affects the likelihood that people who are being referred from the navigation team are less likely to be successful in accessing permanent housing because so much of what happens as part of the standards of care actually helps outreach be successful.

not just the acceptance of outreach on the front end and into shelter, but also into accessing permanent housing on the back end.

I know that there was some, that we had some correspondence, Director Johnson, about whether or not the standards of care that were referred to, I think, in the auditor's report were The standards that we're all using right now and that we are revisiting those.

But I think the principle is still an important principle is that we do have standardization for the outreach providers that are part of the NAV team with our other outreach providers.

So just can you let me know whether or not there's been any progress made on the auditor's recommendations?

and how we can do better at monitoring the quality of outreach services and adherence to best practices.

Thank you.

We did address the outreach standards of care in our Q1 document, but we'll be happy to follow up with you again and provide more clarification.

I did appreciate Director Johnson's highlighting the ways that the navigation team outreach works the same.

We hold ourselves to the same standards as our other outreach providers.

The navigation team meets weekly with members of the outreach continuum.

And have met, had other meetings with outreach, other outreach providers to talk about things like standards of care and goals for the work that we do.

We all offer, if you look at the service requests and the types of services that are offered, It is a core value of outreach work to meet the needs of the person in front of you with what they're asking for right in that moment.

And all outreach, city-funded outreach workers, including the navigation team, do that at the same time that we're working towards a longer goal of helping someone accept a safer alternative.

And when we talk about, did you have a follow-up question?

I do.

I just, for the viewing public and for folks who may not have all the reports, you stated that this issue was addressed in the first quarter report.

And it was addressed as far as a statement that makes clear that you did not incorporate standards of care into contracts with outreach agencies.

You didn't, therefore you do not monitor compliance with these standards.

And you either could not or did not provide information on how implementation may vary.

We haven't received clarification for why the standards have not been formally incorporated into agency contracts.

So I, you said it was addressed.

I just, I think it's important for folks around this table and the viewing public to hear how it was addressed.

The outreach standards of care were a set of recommendations that were made 2016. And so while those were not ever formally built into contract expectations from HSD, those standards of care were built into our 2017 RFP process where we asked outreach providers to specifically respond to key elements and we built our our program model around the core values of those outreach standards of care, and that is in the attachment with our Q1 document.

So while they were not contractually mandated, they are infused into the work of all outreach providers, including the work of the navigation team.

So that work continues.

I would just add that not only did we infuse that in spirit, we made funding decisions based on the standards of care and people's ability to respond to their ability to adhere to those standards of care.

So in the RFP, funding decisions were made with those sort of at the center of decision making for our outreach programs.

They have not been implemented or mandated into our contracts, but were a useful tool in our decision making for who we would contract with.

Okay, can we continue to the end of the presentation?

Because I really want to get to the slide on diversion strategies.

I have some questions, and I'd like to hear a little bit more.

But before moving on, I just want to ask Council Member Herbold if you had any follow-ups to that line of questioning.

Okay, great.

You can proceed with the presentation, please.

Thank you.

So we're excited to offer diversion on the navigation team as an important way.

When we talk about improving outcomes for individuals, this is one way that the navigation team in HSD has committed dollars behind helping to improve outcomes for people that are living outdoors.

As you know, the centralized diversion fund was depleted in 2019. Diversion is a service that is very useful and helps individuals bypass the shelter system, which then, you know, helps us not have those bottlenecks of exits.

So we're looking for how to help someone support them with a permanent or temporary housing solution.

such as living with friends or family so that they don't have to enter the shelter system.

To support diversion, HSD has committed $12,000 in flexible funds so that system navigators can work with individuals on diversion strategies.

And in Q1 of 2020, we have had a couple of successful diversion outcomes already, and so we're very pleased for that.

But I'm curious also what questions you have specifically related to diversion.

So it looks like the amount of money that's been presented on the slide is $12,000, unless that's a typo.

It's not a super flush diversion account.

But I am wondering if that's sort of a proof of concept funding to see how this strategy can work with the NAV team.

Like, if there's been any evidence so far of how successful diversion-based interventions have been with the NAB team.

I mean, guys, just to put my cards on the table, I'm a huge supporter of diversion from a lot of the community stakeholders I've talked to, Mary's Place in particular.

really emphasizing that diversion is becoming a bigger part of what they would like to offer to have folks bypass the shelter system entirely.

But that, you know, $12,000 really isn't a lot to move the needle.

But I am curious to see what the outcomes of that $12,000 are and then the potential scalability of that.

So I wonder if you have some information now about that or if that's something that's really going to kick off in 2020 and you'll have information later.

Yeah, so that's exactly right.

This is not a great deal of money, $12,000, but diversion is much more than just rent, just client assistance.

Diversion is the practice of engaging with an individual and exploring all options that might be available to that individual.

And we've seen great successes in our community with diversion.

And thank you for highlighting that it works for a variety of populations, whether it's young people, families, individuals who are experiencing homelessness, as well as individuals.

who are on the verge of eviction.

So it is a proven model of case management engagement paired with oftentimes just a small amount of client assistance that has proven to be incredibly successful in bypassing the shelter system altogether and moving individuals into housing.

What we wanted to test out here is could we put diversion resources into the hands of our system navigators?

Could we train those system navigators in the act of or process of diversion so that they were well trained and could engage with people in a diversion manner?

with some cash assistance associated, and let's see what kind of results we have from that.

Right.

And so, just to go back to reemphasize part of my question, because that answered most of it, but the one piece of clarification that I did want was if this is forward looking or if we already have some experience in how that diversion money has been helpful in the mission of the navigation team.

Diversion money is this year.

It's this year.

It's new.

Yeah, it's new.

The diversion client assistance dollars are something that we have here in 2020.

Okay, well just a flag for going forward.

That's something that I have a particularly strong interest in and would like to get more information on how that those diversion dollars are used as we go through 2020 and maybe look at scaling that up as one of our strategies, because I've seen how it's worked well in a lot of other contexts, and if that's something that can make the mission of the navigation team more impactful, I'd like to explore that more.

Council Member Mosqueda.

Do you have more questions?

That's all for now.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

On the diversion funding, is this not the same pool that Pearl Jam provided funding to and Microsoft is providing funding to, so that's basically additional funds to maybe cover one month's rent, two months' rent?

That is correct.

These are separate.

These are in addition to the centralized diversion funds that was funded through both private and public sources.

So it is related, right, in that we still would like some information about how many people were able to access that fund, what was the total universe there.

I understand that the money that Pearl Jam already provided has depleted already and now Microsoft has added some funds.

I mean, ideally we would not be in a situation where we as a municipality are looking for Private contributions, but appreciate that they are putting that funding in I would love to know more about how that fund has been used And mr. Chair, do you mind if I ask a quick follow-up question, please?

So while the Director Johnson you you sort of answered my question I That's scary everybody, sorry.

You answered my question about the 60% requirement rate for referrals.

I had been under the impression that it was a requirement for our contractors and perhaps that had changed in terms of the language that we use with some of our contractors in the past.

But my understanding is that the way that our contractors see that 60% requirement for referral and other HSD contracts that we have with referrals into housing is that it's very much seen as an indicator of success.

And while it might not be a quote mandate, it truly does feel like this is a key indicator that they will be judged on in future years.

Can you confirm for us that that 60% mark or for referrals into shelter or referrals into housing is not how people are assessed for future funding or is it an element that you look at for future funding?

So it is, just to try to be as clear as possible, it is not a mandate, it is not a, our outreach contracts are not paid for performance, therefore we are not withholding any money based on a outreach program's ability to get close to, surpass, be far from that 60% target.

That said, as a system, so when the city of Seattle, all other cities in King County, King County government look at how our system as a whole is performing, we are gauging it against the targets that we've set.

And so we are talking about success, typically not of an individual program.

but of a program type of an investment area to understand and gauge where they are against the targets that we set.

And we set aggressive targets.

We did set high ambitious targets.

We continue, I think those targets have been in place now maybe three years.

I believe they were established before 2018. And those targets and programs performance, so percentage, I mean it depends on what kind of program it is.

For example, percentage of people exiting to permanent housing as a target.

Those are the kind of performance, that's the kind of performance data that public funders do use, including the Human Services Department, to make funding decisions.

So it is not necessarily are people surpassing the target.

But we do look across a program area at all of the programs when there's an RFP and look at how those programs are performing.

Council Member Morales.

I'm going to try another way to see if we can get an answer to this question.

So you said that the contracts don't pay for performance.

So one question is, that's not what they are, what are they?

Then you said that instead you set targets for what you would like to see.

And then you said that the targets are used as performance data for the contracts.

So it sounds like they are used.

Yeah, we use them.

I would just say it's not a pay for performance.

We are not withholding money out of the contracts.

It's not a mandate that you hit 60% or you don't get paid.

We do use the targets system-wide to understand how outreach investments made by the City of Seattle and King County are performing.

And that is a requirement of- So that information will be used for future contracts if they're not meeting those targets.

Correct.

So we use that in RFPs.

HUD uses that to understand and rank how projects are performing that they have investments in.

So we very much use those targets.

We use performance to understand how program areas are performing.

Maybe it's better if I use an example.

Rapid rehousing was a brand new intervention.

People were really nervous about us investing in rapid rehousing.

We did some early rapid rehousing pilots, and what we were able to see in those pilots is that they performed well, meaning people remained in permanent housing and that the relative cost of that permanent housing exit was relatively low.

And so we weren't looking at any one individual program, but we were looking across the entire system to say, you know what?

Investments in rapid rehousing seem to be successful.

We do the same thing across outreach, across emergency basic shelter, enhanced shelter, transitional housing, permanent supportive housing.

So those targets help us give an indicator of how well our system of investments are performing.

And thank you, Mr. Drew.

Council Member Peterson, you have a question, please.

Yes, thank you.

Thank you for being here today.

I know this was a, there were lots of tough questions and it's really coming from a place of compassion and people want to solve the problem and we're all in this work to engage in this work together and trying to make the system better.

And one of my first, the first thing I did on my first day on the job was actually accompany the navigation team out.

You were engaging with people experiencing homelessness, And so what I observed are professionals, city employees, highly professional, trying to do their best under the difficult circumstances.

And of course the people living outside unsheltered are the ones really suffering.

And so I just appreciate the hard work that you're trying to do.

And I wanna thank you for the work.

I know you don't hear that enough.

In terms of the new, as you try to improve the program, thanks a lot to the council members who are pushing in that direction.

I appreciate Council Member Herbold's comments, which I want to get back to about defining obstructions.

This new element of you're being able to transport people now from the unauthorized encampments to shelter, that's a very new element, correct?

I don't, I remember you were thinking about that back in November of last year.

So tell us about when did that start and when do you expect to see results from the transportation addition?

That began late in Q4 2019, and we continue to receive reports from our system navigators about how that is having a real benefit.

I'm fortunate to receive their narrative, some narrative stories about really the details about the ways that transportation has been transformative in helping people access shelter.

Similar to diversion, I've been able to read the personal accounts from our system navigators of those also.

We didn't bring those things today, and some do have personally identifying information.

But I know for our system navigators, it really is of value for them to be able to help take that person the next step on their journey.

And then the diversion funding, which I know a lot of us support, we've seen it work with other providers.

So that's, like you said, that's very new as well, this idea of empowering the system navigators with some dollars to help solve problems for people in the field.

You're saying that just started this quarter?

Right, that just started this quarter.

And I appreciate Director Johnson highlighting for all of us that it's not just a financial investment.

Diversion is a way of doing work.

It's a conversation.

And oftentimes very small dollars, client assistance dollars, can have a successful diversion because it's about that broader problem solving with individuals.

Good, so we'll look forward to seeing how the outcomes are with these new elements of transportation and diversion.

You had mentioned earlier about the data that you have.

Do you have access to the Homeless Management Information System, HMIS?

Is that where you're getting the data for when people are going to the shelters, or is that the data you don't have access to?

HSD does have access to HMIS information, and when we do what we call internally a matchback process, we're pulling data from our NAV app on the referrals that we have made, the unique referrals, and then cross-referencing that within HSD to the HMIS system.

And again, that's where we can get those challenges of privacy opt-outs.

That makes it hard for us to do that matchback, but yes, it's across the HMIS the Navteam's Nav app database.

Okay, well, let us know if there's something that is needed to make those matchbacks more accurate.

Maybe the numbers will change.

I think we're just seeking accuracy with the data and want to be helpful with that.

In terms of the obstruction definition, I think there's some, I mean, we all approach things differently, which is why the council can be so strong, because we've got these different backgrounds and different perspectives.

The definition of obstruction, it sounds like that is a common theme that we'd like to, get more information on and see how that's defined so we can see is there consensus on what's a reasonable, what's reasonably defined as an obstruction because if once it's defined by the executive as an obstruction, then it seems, you know, then there's fewer safeguards in terms of how the notification occurs, et cetera.

So I look forward to hearing more about that.

Thank you so much.

And I know a number of council members have some appointments.

So I think at this point, I'd like to.

I'm going to make a couple of closing remarks and kind of in my roadmap before I'd like to go with this and then we can follow up some of these conversations offline.

First, from the conversation that we had earlier, I think I see two big systemic issues that we should work through and that I'd like to work through with the department and the council members.

I think the first one is the very high decline rate for referrals.

and really drilling down into what the basis is for that high decline rate, what it is about our particular strategy in using the navigation team that is resulting in folks refusing services or not engaging with the navigation team.

I want to look at the relationship that that has to the supply of transitional encampments and enhanced shelters.

There was a conversation earlier when we were talking about that issue where I believe Director Johnson said that would move the bottleneck to being at the front door of permanent supportive housing.

My analysis from our conversation today is that the bottleneck is currently in unsanctioned encampments out in our neighborhoods, parks, the areas where the obstruction camps are being cleared.

So moving that bottleneck to transitional encampments would be a huge step in the right direction.

So those are kind of my two big takeaways from this conversation.

I really appreciate everyone coming and being prepared to answer difficult questions today.

really look forward to continuing this conversation, and I want to thank everyone for their patience on the committee.

With that, before we adjourn, is there any other business?

Doesn't appear to be.

Hearing no further business come before the committee, we are hereby adjourned.

Thank you so much.